


Take Me Home

by orphan_account



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boy Band, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 19:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things like this don't happen to freckled white boys from Kansas. </p><p>Or, Young Justice is actually a boy band.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

There's a part of Wally that will never get used to this, no matter how many times they've all done this before. His heart always pounds, his eyes not entirely used to the darkness, and he can hear the dull screaming in his ears, in spite of his ear piece.

From his position in the back of the stage, he can faintly see the outlines of his band mates as he counts to ten, knowing that once he hits the final number the lights would flash on and Kal's solo would be first, followed by Conner's, and then his before they all started harmonizing together.

 _..._ _nine_ _,_ **ten**.

The lights flash, partially blinding Wally as he listens to Kal sing his lyrics perfectly as the screaming intensifies.

This is it.

.

The show goes by quickly, but then they always do, and then there's nothing left but long weeks of touring and interviews and traveling in front of them. They always start in Los Angeles, which is where they all lived, before finishing the American tour in New York City. First America, and then the world.

Wally can hardly wait.

But first, sleep.

He yawns into his palm as he walks off the stage, knowing that he completely reeks. Moisture makes his shirt stick to him in awkward places, but a hot shower is awaiting him at home before they have to take off in the company jet.

A few of the tech and crew people tell him good-night, and he doesn't envy them at all. He can see Kal helping them out, and thinks about offering as well before realizing that he had almost a full year left to offer his services.

He finds Conner standing in the corner of the stage, just staring. "Hey man, what are you..." he trails off once he follows Conner's gaze. He's watching Megan and one of the tech guys that Wally's pretty sure is new, as they flirt, lifting things off the stage in between kisses.

"Aren't you going to go home?" Wally asks instead, changing the topic like he doesn't know that they had recently broken up, and that Conner currently looked like a guy whose heart was being torn up in a blender at full speed.

That does the trick, startling Conner out of his funk. "Yeah. I need to feed Wolf and make sure that Jaime knows what he needs to do before we go and...yeah." Conner rubs the back of his neck, looking at the ground before walking off, muttering to himself.

He finds Dick talking to a girl in the corner. She's obviously not a fan—by now, Wally can spot those an hour away—but instead someone that has a job to do. "Come on, Boy Wonder," he tells Dick, grabbing him by the shoulder and taking him with him. "Let's share a cab home."

Dick just grins at the girl over his shoulder before continuing on with Wally. "That was a good one, yeah?" he asks, and Wally grunts in agreement.

He doesn't want to think about the fact that after this, there will be no going home without one another. The security guards need everyone at the same place at the same time so that they don't get attacked, but the stadium in L.A. has a secret entrance that helps them get to go home without being attacked by fans.

"Last time to sleep in our own beds before it all begins," Wally says, already feeling homesick for the apartment that he had recently bought with the earnings on Young Justice's first album,  _Secrets_ _and_ _Lies_.

"Yeah, but that's the best part," Dick says, grinning again, and Wally knows that he will never understand how Dick recovers so fast from late night concerts. Out of all of them, he's always the one that brings up going out at night, even after performing for five or six hours.

"See you bright and early tomorrow," Wally tells him as they stop at Dick's place before continuing on the ride home.

.

_**Q** _ _** & ** _ _**A** _ _**WITH** _ _**YOUNG** _ _**JUSTICE** _

_Zatanna_ _Zatara_ _here_ _,_ _and_ _I_ _managed_ _to_ _grab_ _a_ _quick_ _interview_ _with_ _the_ _boys_ _before_ _they_ _left_ _on_ _their_ Invasion  _tour_ _._ _They_ _'_ _ll_ _be_ _here_ _in_ _the_ _US_ _until_ _March_ _,_ _so_ _get_ _ready_ _girls_ _!_ _They_ _'_ _ll_ _be_ _coming_ _to_ _a_ _venue_ _near_ _you_ _very_ _soon_ _._

_**ZZ** _ _**:** _ _What_ _would_ _you_ _say_ _is_ _the_ _biggest_ _difference with_ _this_ _tour_ _versus_ _the_ _last_ _one_ _?_

_**DG**_ _ **:**_ You mean, besides the music?

 _ **KD**_ _ **:**_  Well, it is a lot bigger. For one thing, we have more fans now, and so there will be more stops and less rests in between, which we are all more than ready for.

 _ **WW**_ _ **:**_ And there's a lot more lights and effects and things. We won't be dancing—

 _ **CK**_ _ **:**_ Definitely not.

 _ **WW**_ _ **:**_  -but we won't be doing the same ol' same ol' either.

_**ZZ** _ _**:** _ _How_ _do_ _you_ _guys_ _cope_ _with_ _all the_ _crazy_ _traveling_ _and_ _being_ _up_ _all_ _hours_ _and_ _the_ _stress_ _?_

_**CK**_ _ **:**_ I punch things. Punching bags are really relaxing.

 _ **DG**_ _ **:**_ Wally here just eats like a pregnant lady.

 _ **WW**_ _ **:**_ Hey!

 _ **DG**_ _ **:**_ And Kal meditates and does yoga.

 _ **KD**_ _ **:**_ I do. It is what keeps me calm and centered and able to not just poison all of the boys' drinks to get a good night's rest.

 _ **WW**_ _ **:**_ Dick over here does flips and s*** all around the tour bus whenever he feels the need since he can't drink legally in the states like the rest of us.

_**ZZ** _ _**:** _ _Well_ _I_ _can_ _definitely_ _see_ _why_ _you_ _'_ _d_ _need_ _to_ _mediate_ _,_ _Kal_ _!_ _But_ _one_ _last_ _question_ _before_ _I_ _let_ _you_ _boys_ _go_ _._ _I_ _'_ _ve_ _gotten_ _mail_ _from_ _several_ _girls_ _asking_ _the_ _same_ _thing_ _:_ _What_ _'_ _s_ _something_ _that_ _you_ _look_ _for_ _in_ _a_ _significant_ _other_ _?_

_**WW**_ _ **:**_ My stomach would like someone that could cook. When they say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, they're right!

 _ **DG**_ _ **:**_ I don't know. I think I'll know it when I see it, though.

 _ **CK**_ _ **:**_ Someone willing to put up with all the stuff that goes on in my life.

 _ **KD**_ _ **:**_ I have the same sentiments as Dick. No one really knows the answer until they see that person for themselves.

Wally reads the article twice before ripping out the page and putting it on the box that he always brought along on tours. He had an identical one at his apartment, and an even bigger one to put them both in when they became full.

"I don't get why you do that," Conner says, looking up from the TV. "You were there when we were getting interviewed, why would you want to go through it again?"

"When we're old and gray and fat," Wally started, ignoring Dick's "Speak for yourself," comment, "and this is nothing but a memory, I want to remember everything. Plus it's one of Zee's articles, and those are always good."

Dick kicked the back of his seat. "Oh, get over yourself. You just like looking at the pictures of yourself."

"That too. I look damn good in every one."

"I was the one that won the best looking poll, remember?" Kal pipes up from the corner, smirking in that mild way of his, and they all start laughing.

"Clearly  _Seventeen_  readers don't know what they're talking about."

"Dick, you guys were in a tie for weeks before Kal finally pulled through."

"Don't be bitter, Wallman. Just because you were last place..."

"Technically I was only behind Conner by five percent, so it doesn't matter. I'm still up there. It's the freckles."

"And the no soul thing too, probably," Conner adds, which makes them laugh again.

"Just because I'm a ginger and you're a bottle blonde, Conner. That's why we were left behind."

"Sure it was," Dick says, and then they're quiet, watching the zombies on the television screen get blown up again.

Once again it occurs to Wally how surreal this is—how there was a poll on the internet that rated their attractiveness, that their faces are all over magazines and blogs, how their every move is scrutinized. He loves it, but hates it all at the same time.

When he signed up for the  _Factor_ he hadn't expected all of this. He hadn't expected to meet the three best friends that he'd ever had, and he certainly hadn't expected all of the fame. He had been just a skinny white boy from Kansas with a dream, but now he's an international popstar, one fourth of one of the most popular bands in the whole world.

He has eight million followers on Twitter, for Christ's sake.

Thinking of said followers gets him thinking, so he takes a quick picture of the rest of the guys, all watching the movie on the other side of him, and adds a quick comment 'just hanging w/ the boys!' before pressing send.

"Please tell me that's not going on Twitter," Conner grumbles.

"Going, going, gone, bud," Wally says. It takes a few seconds, but then there are retweets and replies coming out of the wazoo.

 **@Wallys** **.** **GIRL**  You're all so cute!1

 **@hollaback** when r u and dick coming out

 **@almostlibby**  Why are none of you shirtless?

 **@yjismylife** Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

He shuts off his Twitter app before he can see anything else.

"Five bucks says that guy is going to die," Dick says, gesturing to the screen. He is also, incidentally, the guy with the biggest gun.

"Not a chance."

"Oh, you're  _so_ on."

.

There's always a lull in between getting ready for a show and actually performing in one, and that's when Wally gets the most jitters. Once he hits the vocal warm ups he's okay again, having done this what feels like a million times, but he can never get rid of the feeling that he's going to screw everything all up.

"Where's Roy?" he asks Dick after throwing all of their stuff in the room they share together on the bus. Talking to their bodyguard always helped take the edge off things, if only because Roy was always so unimpressed by all of them after staying with them one night. He had spent the time watching scary movies and listening to all of them scream. He ended up being one of the guys too, even if he was being paid for it.

"Don't you know? He quit."

"Roy  _quit_? What the fuck?"

"Yeah. Kal told me that he went to 'find himself' or something like that. Evidently there was some hat throwing too."

"Hat throwing? Jesus, he was always a bigger diva than all of us put together. So what are we going to do, then?"

"I think his replacement is coming tonight. We're going to meet her before the show."

" _Her_ _?_ Seriously? Our new bodyguard's a  _girl_?"

"You're a pig, you know that? A complete pig."

"I'm just saying..." Wally trails off, not knowing exactly where he wants to take that particular thought.

"Just saying that you're a pig? Yeah. But anyway, Bruce says that she's really good and I believe him more than I believe sexist ideals. Gordon wouldn't have let them hire her if she wasn't any good. Besides, it's better than no one at all."

Wally cringes, just thinking about the more interesting fans that they've seen over the year. Like the one that stood outside their hotel rooms in New York City in the middle of winter in just her underwear, trying to get them to look at her. Or the ones that waited in the trash cans by their recording studios and had leaped out at them, demanding autographs. Those had been the times when Roy had gone into full on attack mode. Or in the case of the frozen girl, offered a Young Justice sweatshirt and a cab ride home before getting the cops involved.

"I guess. Whatever. This should be interesting."

.

Kaldur sends everyone a text, telling them to come to the lobby of the venue, so they all come at once. Evidently the paparazzi haven't been tipped off that they're staying here yet, because there isn't anyone lining the windows which is a relief. As much as they joke about Wally being a fame whore, the paps get to all of them.

Conner is the worst about it, but Kal always manages to get him in control before he can do something stupid and get arrested, or worse, get an angry picture in a magazine or on the internet. Megan helped too, but she isn't exactly an option anymore.

Everyone's already down there when Wally greets them with a, "Don't worry, you can start the par-tay now," before falling flat on his face, tripping over his shoe lace.  _Great_ _._

Dick and Conner laugh, but Kaldur doesn't. There's a girl, not a fan, standing a little off to the side of them. "Wally," Kaldur says, speaking loudly so that he's heard above the laughing idiots. "This is Artemis. Our new bodyguard."

"Wally, huh? You're the dumb one, right?"

That gets Dick and Conner laughing all over again.

"Artemis here has been informing us of the role that we fill in the boy band stereotypes," Kaldur explains, smiling slightly.

"Conner is the strong and silent type, Kal is the leader, Dick is the class clown, and that leaves you to be the dumb one." Artemis is smiling, kidding, as they all grin, but Wally isn't the least bit amused from his perspective on the ground.

"Oh please. You're the one that's only been hired for your brawn. Even though I don't see any. Hope you can do your job," Wally replies after he pops up, stung by the fact that he A) fell flat on his face B) is a popstar and shouldn't fall on his face in public and C) that he did all of these things in front of an attractive girl who wouldn't go freaky crazy and stalk them later.

Her eyebrows raise up, the faint look of amusement that was on her face sliding off. "Whatever," she said. "I'll see you guys before you have to get into your Town Car, okay?"

Dick elbows Wally as soon as she walks away. "You know, it's going to be a very long tour if you're going to be a jerk to her the entire time. And I'm pretty sure Gordon wouldn't be happy if you made her quit because you're such a jackass. The press would have a field day with that one."

Wally shrugs, not saying anything even though he knows that his best friend is just telling the truth. "I'll apologize later."  _Maybe_.

"Sure you will," Dick replies, like Wally won't. He's probably right.

.

As they're leaving the San Francisco venue that night, a group of fan comes out the back to greet them. This isn't rare, not by a long shot, and honestly Wally's always been sort of impressed by the creativity that these people have. It's not popping out of dumpsters, but it's something.

"Oh jeez," Wally hears Artemis breathe. "You aren't supposed to be here," Artemis informs them, and the blonde one in the front looks like she's about to cry.

"But we sneaked all the way back here and everything! We just want autographs,  _pleeeeeeeease_? With sugar on top? And a cherry?"

Kaldur sighs, soft enough that if Wally hadn't been standing right next to him he wouldn't have heard it. They have another concert in Seattle tomorrow—no day for recuperation, and out of all of them Kal's always the one that makes sure that he's the most rested. It's part of his yoga angle, or something.

"No, Artemis, it's all right. They're just autographs."

The blonde squeals, too high pitched for even dogs to hear. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Wally can hear the exclamation points being turned into ones, and grins at the sound.

The whole group is wearing shirts with their faces on them, along with glitter and enough hair spray to be a fire hazard. The girls hand them their autograph books to be signed, and they pass them to each other like an assembly line, one by one.

All, except for one dark haired girl in the back. "Who are  _you_?" she asks Artemis.

"She's our guard dog," Wally answers for her, finishing his name with a flourish, since Artemis seems extremely taken aback at being addressed at all. "She's rabid," he adds in a stage whisper, which causes the other girls to smile.

"Oh har dee har har." Artemis rolls her eyes, evidently pulling herself together. "I'm their bodyguard."

"What happened to Roy?" the girl asks Wally, and he watches Artemis's eyes get bigger.

"He had to find himself, or something. It's no big deal."

They finish signing, and the girls run off the way that they came, squealing.

"I sure hope security doesn't find them before they go outside," Dick says, watching them go.

"Let's just get out of here before more come." Conner picks up the pace to the town car, and the rest of them follow suit.

Artemis looks thoughtful, walking behind them instead of in front of them the way she had been as they were walking out. Wally is pretty sure that if they were going to be attacked they were more likely to be attacked from the front, but he doesn't say anything.

"They knew Roy?" she asks him finally, frowning. "They...knew who your body guard was?"

Wally shrugs. "Most people don't. But the ones like that, the ones that somehow manage to evade security and find us behind buildings, they usually do know that stuff. They know who writes our songs and the names of our mothers and where we went to school. And last year, on Conner's birthday, some girl tweeted Conner his exact time of birth, which Conner didn't even know."

"...Really? And you don't find that weird, at all?"

"Oh don't get me wrong, it's hella weird. But it's whatever. Now, it's life. Ever since Gordon made us a band on the  _Factor_ instead of just individual contestants, pretty much. It's like that for everyone that gets on  _Factor_. The only difference with us is the fact that there are more of those kinds of fans, instead of less."

"Well that's...interesting. I just couldn't imagine."

"Do you have a Twitter?" Wally asks.

"Yes. Who doesn't?"

"Well that's where they're going to get you first, when they figure out who you are."

" _Please_ tell me that I'm not going to get seven million of those little notifications that tell me that someone new is following me."

"Well probably not  _that_ many. But I know Roy got a couple hundred or so at first. You'll get more if you start tweeting about how superior Young Justice is to everything ever, though."

"Good thing I won't be doing that, then," she replies, and Wally's surprised to find himself laughing.

That's when he knows that he  _has_ to do it, despite the fact that he said that he wouldn't. Artemis actually isn't half bad, or so he's learning. Maybe they can actually be friends, the way that he and Roy once were. Dick wasn't wrong about something, for once. It is going to be a long tour if he and Artemis don't reach a truce, though they're sort of there all ready.

Plus, Wally is a mature adult and not a fifteen year old. He can do this. Really.

"I just want to say that I'm sorry, for earlier. For snapping at you. I think that you'll be able to do your job, really," he apologizes. "Welcome to the team."

"Thanks. I appreciate that. Though I'm not going to say sorry for calling you the dumb one.  _Someone_ _'_ _s_ got to be."

"You're welcome." There's a hint of sarcasm in Wally's voice when he replies, and Artemis just laughs, her eyes scanning their surroundings before letting herself into the bus with the rest of them.

.

Kal is on his phone for almost the entire bus ride to Seattle, talking in a low and fluid language that lets Wally know that he's talking to someone from back home. Despite Kaldur's speech pattern, and the way that he holds himself differently from everyone else in the band, sometimes Wally finds it easy to forget that Kaldur was actually born in a totally different  _country_.

He was brought to America and lived with a friend of the family, having a visa and then eventually citizenship to help give him a "better chance at a better life" so he was American, but it's not something that's brought up often, not even by Kaldur. So when he's taking a call from back home, it means something big is going on.

The mood is completely different when they arrive in Seattle, but everyone gets to work anyway, getting hair and make-up and their stylist come and fix them up. None of them pick out their own clothes anymore, and especially not on tour. That's what the stylist is  _for_ _._

When Kal's done, Wally goes over to him, trying not to ruin his hair. "Hey, is everything okay back home?"

The lines on Kal's face seem to deepen at Wally's words, and he wishes that he could take them back. He shouldn't have asked so close to a show, but he's got to know so that he can tell the others since they'll want to know too.

"Not really. Mother is telling me not to worry, but a hospital called asking for her insurance, which I take care of now. She needed a treatment for something, and it was not something quick, like a shot or they would have already done it. She could be dying and I wouldn't know, but the doctors cannot tell me and Mother is telling me not to worry about it."

"Maybe it really  _is_ nothing, then," Wally tries to reassure him. It's so rare to see Kal crack and show the worry and responsibility that he must feel all the time, for all of them. A reporter once told them that Kal must have been the one that kept them out of jail when they really got going, and they're right. There's no way that they'd all have stayed together this long, through all of the stress, and not ended up in jail and the papers without him.

"Maybe," Kal agrees, but it's clear on his face that he doesn't believe Wally, the same way that Wally doesn't necessarily believe himself.

.

As it usually is, it was Dick's idea to go out after the concert, and the rest of them had reluctantly agreed. They all liked going to clubs—Wally especially liked the pounding music and the fact that he was finally legal in the States—but it was just a  _hassle_.

Most of the time the patrons left them alone, but there were more than a few girls that would come up to him, hoping that he'd take them on the bus and sleep with them. Wally had done it in the beginning, when he hadn't known any better and thought that women throwing themselves at him was just a fun perk, but he'd learned better.

Add that to the fact that they always felt like they were obligated to watch out for Conner—who had admitted that he'd had a drug problem once upon a time—there were times when clubbing didn't seem worth it.

But this one is fun, Wally has to admit. The music is actually good and the drink in his hand tastes decent enough and only a few girls have come up to him and pressed their body on his, as if giving him a preview before he pushed them off.

He finds Artemis sitting at the bar, and slides into the chair next to hers. She doesn't seem surprised to see him there when she looks up from her water. "Do you guys normally do this?" Artemis yells over all the noise.

Wally shrugs. "Sometimes, if we feel like it. It's fun though, right?"

She shakes her head from side to side, noncommittal, before a girl from off the floor wedges her way between them. "Margarita on the rocks, bar keep," the girl says before turning to Wally, completely blocking Artemis from his view. "How you doin'?" she asks, in a voice that's probably supposed to be seductive, but instead manages to flirt with being nasal.

"Great, thanks. But I was talking to my guard dog over here," Wally nods to Artemis, who gives the girl a short, sarcastic wave when she manages to finally turn around and look at her, "and she can totally kick your ass five ways from Sunday. So I'd leave if I was you. Before I let go of her leash."

"Okay," the girl mumbles, taking her drink from the bar. But not before managing to spill some of it on Artemis. "Sorry," she apologizes flatly, in that same nasal voice, before she walking away.

"Oh,  _honestly_ ," Artemis says, grabbing some napkins from the bar and tapping them on her lap to get rid of the moisture. "I wasn't even  _doing_ anything. I didn't even say anything to her, I was just sitting here!"

"But you're up here with me, and that's more than enough reason to spill a drink on you."

Artemis just rolls her eyes. "I'm going to the bathroom. Please try not to get attacked before I get back."

"It's cool, I think we're about to leave soon anyway," Wally tells her before she nods and walks off.

Kal and Conner are leaning on the wall on the other side of the club, and Wally maneuvers his way through the crowd of people to meet them. While Kal is usually the one that keeps the closest eye on Conner when they're out, when the two of them are standing together no drink in hand usually means that they want to get out.

"Where's Dick?" Wally asks. "I'll grab him and then we can get on the bus."

"Please do," Kal nods. "Where is Artemis? We cannot leave without her."

"Bathroom. She's having some girl problems right now."

Conner looks pained at the thought, but still says, "Okay, we'll wait for her while you go get Dick. I think he went off to some corner, or something."

Wally sighs, but goes to find his best friend. Sometimes the boy was more stress than he was worth, honestly. It takes a while, but Wally finds Dick in a darkened corner, just like Conner said he would. Attached to his mouth is a blonde in a short black dress, and wavy blonde hair.

"Come on, Romeo," Wally says, nudging at Dick until the lovely couple looks up. "Time to get back to the bus."

Dick just gives the girl a shit-eating grin before following Wally out of the club, Kal and Conner and Artemis having already gone before them.

The night air's cool on Wally's skin, making the sweat on his shirt and hair stick to his skin. It's a hike to the bus and no one's around, so Wally asks, "Does it make things easier? Pretending like that, I mean."

Dick just looks around, making sure there's no one in the bushes listening, before answering. "No. It's just that..."

"Just that you want dick in your mouth instead of just some girl's tongue," Wally finishes for him, causing Dick to laugh and bump shoulders with him.

"Why would I want to put myself in my own mouth?" Dick asks, before sighing. "Well, whatever. That's not even an option right now anyway, and we all know it."

"I don't get why you even bother to lead them on anyway."

"Because it's something to do, and keeps the rumors mostly at bay." He shrugs. "It's no big deal, really."

As they climb up the steps into the bus, Wally's not sure that he believes that.

Later that night, just as Wally finally manages to almost be asleep, Dick starts talking again. They've talked late at night about the stuff that matters. The dark of the bus is so different than the light, and makes sharing secrets easier.

"You know, some boy tweeted me today. Asking if the rumors that I was gay were true."

"Dude," Wally rolls over, more awake now. "We get stuff like that all the time. It's part of being part of the biggest underground relationship that's not a relationship of all time."

"Yeah, yeah I know that," Dick says, waving the thought away. "But this kid said that he hoped that they were true, because he wanted to feel like he was okay and not alone. That it was okay for someone famous to go down the street with a guy hand in hand."

"You got that all from one tweet?"

Dick kicks the bottom of Wally's bed. "You know what I mean. But anyway, I just thought...that was me at fourteen, wanting to have someone like that too."

"So what, are you think about coming out? You know we'd all be behind you, one hundred percent."

"I know." Dick sighs. "I don't know."

"Well when you figure it out, just tell me when it's not five in the morning, okay?"

"Night, loser," Dick says, and Wally can hear the rustle of sheets underneath him.


	2. two

The picture was a tangle of legs and arms, among other body parts, with no clothes in sight. Wally has to admit that the coloring is good, but the farther that he scrolls down the more than he wants to stop.

"Conner, do you just have a folder of these on your computer or what?" Wally asks, quickly deleting the message off his phone. Heaven forbid he leave it somewhere and saw gay porn saved in his messages.

"Did Conner find more porn of us?" Dick asks, looking over Wally's shoulder.

"I already deleted it, dude."

"Conner, send me one."

"If you want," Conner says, clicking away at his computer again.

"Wait, what?" Artemis asks, looking up from the book that she's been highlighting for the past hour.

"Conner has a folder of Wally and Dick erotic... fanart on his computer," Kaldur explains. "And he sends it to them regularly."

"I've got to admit, it keeps our friendship fresh," Wally tells her, making Artemis laugh.

"Oh yeah. Don't some fans 'ship' you guys together, or something? Whatever that means. I just found it whenever I Googled you guys before taking this job."

"Yeah, even though we've said a million times that we're not together. Conner here thinks it's funny, so he goes around looking for fanart of us and sends it to us when we're bored." Dick throws Conner a look, and the other boy shrugs it off.

"Well at least I don't go looking for fanfiction."

"That was onetime!" Wally protests. "God, will you guys just let that go? I just wanted to see what it was about, okay!"

"If I remember correctly it had something to do with a chicken alfredo burrito being very phallic, and how Dick biting into one made Wally cream his pants," Conner muses out loud.

"Oh that's it, you're on pal." Wally puts down his bag of chips and tackles Conner, even though he knows that it's a lost cause, a war that's been lost before it's even begun. Even if Conner did have his Macbook on his lap.

And in the background, Artemis laughs again.

.

"Guys, I think it's time," Dick says, and they all groan in response.

"We don't really haveto," Wally protests, crossing his arms in front of his chest because this was honestly theworstthing about going on tour.

"It's still better than having him call us."

"He will be expecting us to," Kal says firmly, making the rest of them shut up. They all know that Kal's right, but that doesn't make the truth any less annoying. Or frightening.

"Wait, what's going on?" Artemis asks.

"It's time to make The Call," Conner tells her, as if that is enough to explain it. Just hearing the words makes Wally shudder.

Gordon Godfrey, the genius behind the Factorand creating Young Justice, the biggest boy band since the Beatles according to some, expected updates and reports from all of them, and when he didn't get them he called himself. They'd only gotten onecall from him, but that was far more than enough.

"It's better to call Gordon as a group, on speaker, because that way he's less obnoxious and rude."

"I... see," Artemis says, even though it's clear that she doesn't.

"He likes an audience," Dick explains and she nods but says nothing.

There's no delaying it now, so Wally pushes the button of the phone built into the bus and waits. The phone rings three times—just like always, nothing more and nothing less, to show that Gordon wants to answer your call but he's so busy he couldn't pick up the first two—before they hear the man's voice on the other end.

"Hello, boys."

"Hey."

"Hi."

"Hello."

"'Sup."

"What can I do for you?"

This too is a staple in any conversation over the phone with Gordon Godfrey. It's not what you can do for him, but instead what he can do for you. Complete and total bullshit, of course, but then it's been a long time since Wally's felt any sort of gratitude and hero worship for the man that got them to the top. Sure he got them there, but it was their talent and hard work that kept Young Justice there. Gordon's an asshole, plain and simple.

"We just wanted you to know that we're a-okay," Wally says, and everyone save Artemis agrees.

"Have there been any problems?" ArethereanymessesthatIhavetocleanup?

"Of course not," Dick answers quickly.

"I would like to ask you something," Kal starts, but then he pauses. Even he's not completely unflappable when it comes to their producer. He clears his throat and starts again. "My mother has been ill and I would really like to have time off to go and see-"

"No can do, Kal," Gordon interrupts, and all the air seems to deflate out of Kal. "You can't cancel, people will talk and that just can't happen. Everything rests on you boys' images. You should all remember that. Don't do anything stupid."

"But what about when we're in Houston?" Conner asks. "That's halfway, and we always have a week long break. We can do all the publicity stuff early and Kal can go for a few days before coming back and finishing the tour."

"People will notice that all of you aren't together."

"Not if I do something," Conner offers, even though he looks pained at the very thought. "I'll do a solo interview or whatever."

"No one is interested in the four of you as individuals."

At this point Conner looks like he wants to punch something, but instead he does what Kal always tells him and takes a deep breath. "I'll go to a club and get wasted and let everyone know about it and that'll distract them all enough."

There's silence in the air, because everyone knows that Conner is one hundred percent sober one hundred percent of the time, and they want to see what Godfrey is going to say.

"Try not to get arrested," Gordon says after a moment. "I have to make some calls now, get all your interviews moved up to Friday of that week. Kal, you can go see your sister for a day." And with that the line goes dead, and that's the end of the conversation.

No one speaks, and then Artemis lets out a whistle. "Wow. He's a hard ass."

"You do not have to do that for me, Conner," Kal says softly.

"You'd do it for us."

"No, don't worry," Dick interrupts. "Conner, you don't have to do anything. You hate clubs and you can't go in one by yourself. I'll do something." Dick looks like he's going to say something else before he frowns, and simply walks away.

Wally wonders what he's thinking about doing, but doesn't ask and Dick doesn't offer any information.

.

"DIE MOTHERFUCKERS."

"I hope you do know that shouting that isn't actually going to help you kill anyone."

"Shut it, Boy Wonder." Wally clicks his controller a few more times before feeling it vibrate, the shot of death. "Dammit."

Dick cackles beside him as he's announced as winner once again.

"Another round?" Conner asks, grabbing his controller from off the table where he'd traded it for a bag of chips when he died.

"Y-e-s," Dick replies, and Kal shrugs.

"Hey Artemis," Wally calls. "Do you want to play this time? We'll go easy on you."

"Okay, I'll try it. But I've never played this game before so I probably won't do very well. I'm not great at video games."

She comes to sit between Wally and Dick, and Wally can feel the heat of her knee through his jeans where their bodies brush. Kal hands her a controller and Artemis smiles at him in thanks. All of a sudden Wally doesn't have a great feeling about this.

"Start again?" Dick asks, and when everyone agrees it's all out war. There's something mindless and comforting about video games. No matter how many times you 'kill' the enemy they'll always come back, like clockwork.

Artemis is kicking ass, cutting down more alien/werewolf hybrids than any of them. Wally's the first to die, since he's watching Artemis so closely and doesn't even see when a hybrid comes up behind him. Conner's next, and then Kal, and then it's just Dick and Artemis, neck and neck.

Dick is easily the best player out of all of them, which he says is because he was a huge computer nerd before he was an international pop star. So when Artemis eventually outlives him and beats the level that they have all been stuck on for a week, something's up.

"I have come to a conclusion," Wally says finally, after they all spend a beat staring at the screen in disbelief. "I have concluded that when you said that you couldn't play video games you were playing on our sexist undertones, and are full of shit."

"Well said," Dick concurs, sore at being beat. If Wally wasn't so focused on Artemis, he would be laughing.

"My sister plays video games, and she taught me a few things. She's probably better than all of you in this room. Compared to her I'm nothing and I die every time."

"Okay, you're not allowed to play with us if you're going to kick our asses like that," Conner tells her and Artemis laughs.

"Fine. I'd hate to bruise all of your delicate male egos."

.

Wally's wondered before why they hired Artemis. Not that he's complaining, anymore, because he likes Artemis and when she's on duty she's very diligent about her job.

Stereotypically, however, a bodyguard is a guy roughly built like the Hulk, hopefully with a heart of gold.

Artemis is shorter than him, and thin, the complete opposite of Roy who was huge and had thigh muscles bigger than Wally's head. He also had a fierce punch, as the whole band had found out once when Roy was off-duty and had decided to go out and had gotten drunk.

Wally wonders why, in the back of his head, but he finds out why in Chicago.

For some reason the fans there (Midwest represent!) seem to be rowdier, and when one breaks free of the gates that hold them in, Artemis is on the girl in five seconds. She slams the fan to the ground from her own velocity. The physics nerd in Wally is impressed after he does the calculations in his head.

"Wow," Wally can her Kal say from beside him as they're all rushed to the bus, having to pick up the pace just in case anyone got any similar ideas while Artemis was preoccupied.

"She's got our back," Wally says and Kal nods.

When Artemis finally gets to the hotel that they're staying in, he's waiting for her. He knows that security is supposed to stay up a few hours later than them to make sure no one's scaling the walls or creeping up and down the hallways trying to find them, so he also has a Starbucks coffee in his hand.

Artemis just looks at him before shaking her head and sliding down the wally to sit next to him as he hands her the coffee and she takes a long drink. "I wasn't sure how you liked your coffee so I just got you black."

"Black's fine. Thanks."

"So... where did you learn moves like that? I've only seen stuff like that in movies."

"My dad. He was pretty crazy about all that stuff so my sister and I learned self-defense first, but then martial arts and whatever else he could think of. I hated it, but it's gotten me more than a few jobs so I'm okay with it now."

"Well, you're a good bodyguard. I just wanted you to know that."

"Thanks. You're a pretty good guy, I just wanted you to know that." Artemis is smiling at him and he can feel his stomach fill up with butterflies, and that's how he knows that Dick was right. "I didn't think that I'd like you guys when I took this job, but you're all great."

She finishes her coffee. "Thanks again for the Starbucks. I've got to go do perimeter, so go back to your and Dick's room and make my job easier, okay?"

And when he's flopping into his bed for the night, Wally knows that Dick was right - he's screwed.

.

The first thing that Wally does that morning is grab his Mac and log onto Twitter. He sees the usual things in his notifications, lots of 'I love yous' and that sort of thing, before he gets back on his tweet deck and sends out a 'Good morning! How is everyone?'

 **@moriuh** gr8 thx!

 **@organggood** morning 2 U

 **@sexycani** Good now that you're on. ;)

He watches the tweets flood in before he goes and searches for Artemis's twitter. He knows that she has one—she told him months ago that she had one—but he never thought to look before now. She's easy enough to find thanks to her unusual name, and her Tweets are all hilarious musings about her day and her schoolwork and her job. All under one hundred and twenty characters, of course.

Wally thinks about tweeting her, but that would put her on the market of semi-fame, and he knows that she'd hate that. So instead he just follows her and closes his computer with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Artemis comes up to him a couple of hours later, bottle of water in her hand. She sits next to him and props her feet up on the table, crossing them at her ankles, before she says, "I got a couple hundred twitter followers today."Wally gets really interested in the gaming magazine that he was flipping through before. "You wouldn't happen to know why that is, would you?"

"Maybe it's because an international popstar started following you? I don't know, I bet that helped."

When he dares to look up Artemis is smirking. "You're an idiot, but that's okay. Thanks for the follow."

.

Houston comes faster than Wally thinks it should, and with it comes the halfway mark of their American tour.

As promised, all of their press in Houston is done in one very, very long day, and at the end of it they're all exhausted. Conner immediately goes to his and Kal's side of the suite, Wally and Dick find themselves sprawled out on the couch, and even Kal takes a break and sits down at the kitchen table before packing.

"It's like...they're hungry piranhas or something," Wally started when he found it in himself to speak.

"And we're..."

"In a 1970s movie with Bradford Dillman?"

"Exactly what I was thinking. That's why we're soul bros."

Wally and Dick look at each other, contemplate fist bumping, and then simultaneously decide that it is too much work.

Kal gets up from the table, the bromance obviously overwhelming him. "I must continue packing, my plane leaves in three hours."

"Oh man," Dick says once Kal leaves the room. "It's going to be so weird being on tour without Kal."

"We're not going to be performing without him, but I know what you mean," Wally agrees, and thinks once again about how strange this whole thing is.

Wally grew up in the suburbs as an only child. He'd loved biology and singing, and was bullied equally for both during school. Trying out for The Factor had been a dare that one of his old high school friends had put him up to—and then that dare had changed his whole life.

He'd performed and competed on The Factor before losing. After that Wally had thought that it was all over, that his dream about being famous had died a cold, hard death. So he'd focused on science and stopped singing entirely. He'd be accepted to Stanford before he'd gotten the call from Gordon that had said that he was putting together a group of other Factor contestants that had lost, and would he like to be in a band instead of trying as a solo artist?

Stanford had been dropped like a hot potato, and he'd met the boys, and they'd become like brothers. Wally couldn't imagine life without them anymore—when he lived in LA they constantly got together as much as their schedules would allow. But tour was something else.

Tour was _their_ time together, and it always was. Of course there were people surrounding them too, but being on tour and having one of them absent would be weird, like a missing tooth, poked and prodded and commented upon until it came back.

Somehow, in between TV shows and albums and tours and screaming fans, the four of them had become brothers.

So yeah, Wally would miss Kal, and yeah, this would be weird. But he was also planning on using this time as wisely as he could.

.

They all went on the drive to Hobby airport to see Kal off, even if they didn't go to security with him, and after Artemis came back Wally decides that now was as good a time as any.

He clears his throat and begins, "Artemis? You have tomorrow off, right?"

"Yeah," she answers, turning to face him. "Why, what's up? Need protection?"

"No. No, no, no, not at all, not yet, I mean I hope...but nope I don't...why would I..." Wally trailed off because oh. She'd been talking about the physical kind. God. "Anyway, no. I mean, I know you have to be with us all the time. But I was hoping that you'd want to go on a date. With me, I mean. Tomorrow. Together."

Artemis cocks her head and begins gnawing her lip. Wally internally crosses his fingers. It's been a while since he'd asked anyone out, but the last time he'd failed this spectacularly had been when he'd tried to ask Brittany Wu to junior prom. This isn't going well, in any universe.

"Is this a date?" she says finally.

"Absolutely. Unless you don't want it to be. But I was sort of planning on it being a date, yeah."

Could he do anything _right_? Vaguely, he hears Dick and Conner snort, but Wally's not completely sure that was actually them and not just his paranoia.

Finally, blessedly, amazingly, Artemis smiles at him. "Yes, I'll go out with you, if it's a date. But this won't get me in trouble or anything, would it? Because I don't remember this being in the contract or anything. "

"No, you know Megan from technical? She and Conner dated for a while, and it was no big deal. You just can't exploit us or anything."

"I'll try to contain myself then," Artemis smirks, but when Wally turns away to go fist pump she grabs his wrist. "I'm really glad you asked me," she says, stepping on her toes to give Wally a kiss on the cheek before she glides away.

.

Wally takes a while to get ready of the morning. He sees Dick smirking at him in the reflection in the mirror, and Wally makes a face.

"Do I look good?" Wally asks. "Seeing as how you've got a gene inside of you that knows about fashion and all that."

"Stereotypical much? But you look fine," Dick answers. "And I'm not just saying that because I'm gay."

"Well, here goes nothing." Wally looks at himself one last time in the mirror before grabbing his Ray Bans and heading to the lobby, where he and Artemis are planning on meeting.

Downstairs there aren't any paparazzi that Wally can see, which is a blessing, and not too many fans that are staring at him.

"Come on," he says from behind Artemis, grabbing her hand. "Let's get out of here before anyone realizes that I'm not actually a Ed Sheeran wannabe."

Artemis laughs all the way to the cab that's waiting out front.

.

"The mall?" Artemis says finally. "Really?"

"Hey, this is one of the best things to do in Houston, and it's just a stop on the list. The Galleria is one of the best malls in the country, though."

"If you say so," Artemis replies, but she's smiling while she says it, so Wally's feeling pretty confident. After the disastrous asking, Wally figures that nothing can go that badly afterward, and he was right for once.

"Want to go ice skating?" Artemis asks as they walked onto the first floor. Wally looked longingly at the food court before he answered.

"Hell yeah, let's go!"

They skate across the rink for a few laps, during which Wally only falls a total of four times, and he was pretty sure that the bruising wouldn't be toodeep. But for the way Artemis laughs at him every time he falls, hands over her mouth and ponytail over her shoulder, he would have fallen a lot more times.

It's weird, being the sole focus of her attention in public. Privately they'd had their conversations together, and had sat next to each other in the quiet days, but this was different. Normally Artemis was on duty in public, watching not only the four of them, but everyone around them.

But now she was only watching Wally, and it's a heady feeling. One he could get used to.

On their tour of the mall, on the second floor, Wally grabs her hand and she squeezes his back, but otherwise hadn't commented or pulled away.

When they pass by Claire's there was a big section of the store dedicated to Young Justice, and Wally stops in his tracks.

"Oh no. No way," Artemis exclaims , laughing as Wally stared up at a blown up version of himself and his best friends.

"This is so weird," Wally says, because he'll never get used to this. "We have to go inside."

"I don't think your head needs to get any bigger," Artemis argues, but she follows him inside.

He sees t-shirts and necklaces and journals and pens with the whole band on all their faces. He spins until he sees a stretchy black bracelet that proclaims IHEARTYJand buys it for Artemis. The cashier pauses as she rings him up, glances at the poster behind her, and then back at Wally.

"Are you-?"

"Yep," Wally answers, grabbing his purchase as Artemis grabs his hand and they walk out of the store together. There's a moment of silence before the both of them start laughing again.

When they stop Wally gets the bracelet out of the bag and hands it to Artemis.

"Oh no. Seriously, I couldn't."

"Artemis, you're offending me," Wally says, throwing a hand over his heart. "It's not like you don't heart us, right?"

"No, I totally heart you guys," Artemis finally admits, rolling her eyes as she does so. "Put it on me." She holds out her wrist and Wally obliges, grinning as he does so. He grins down at her wrist, and then notices that her eyes are on his face.

Wally hasn't had a lot of first kisses that don't involve shady bars and alcohol, but he can feel this one in his gut. He doesn't know which one of them leans in first, but he leans down and touches his lips to hers and everything feels right, even when they have to break it off because Wally's smiling against her lips.

"Come on, pop star," she says. "Let's keep looking."

Artemis holds out her hand and Wally takes it.

.

Wally literally floats the entire way back to the bus. "We should do this again some time," he tells Artemis, and she agrees.

They stand outside looking at each other before she finally says, "Well are you going to kiss me outside the door or what?" and Wally does as she asks until things get too heavy. "See you later," Artemis tells him before walking away.

Wally does some fist pumping again. He does that a lot where Artemis is involved, it seems.

He floats back to the bus and into the hotel and for several hours after. He flops on the bed and just thinks about the date, replaying it over and over in his mind, before Dick finally says something.

"Wallman. Wallman. Wally! Seriously, this is important."

"What, what is it?" Wally asks, sitting up.

"You're going to want to see this. So you know how I have us all on Google alerts? Well, look at this?"

Wally peers into the laptop screen, and then his heart stops cold.

There are pictures, grainy pictures but it's still clear that Wally is Wally, of him and Artemis kissing in the mall, as well as holding hands at Discovery Green. iHeat Builds in Houston?/i the headlines ask, and Wally feels his blood boil.

He skims the article, noticing that they don't leave out the fact that Artemis is their bodyguard, or the close sources that mention that things between them started at the beginning of the tour. It's all bullshit, of course, but the fan comments make him feel worse.

The worst ones call Artemis a slut and a whore, or that she's just a beard for his and Dick's 'relationships.' The best just seem genuinely hurt, which is a whole other can of worms. This was only their first date, and this has already happened?

He can't believe this, or the sick feeling he gets in the pit of his gut.

"Don't worry," Dick says. "This is going to be okay."

"How? Don't you remember Megan and Conner? And this is only one date. Dick, I like her, more than I've liked anyone in a long, long time. And she's not going to use me or tell magazines anything or use me. She likes me back, and now...now everything's going to go up in flames before they even start."

"Not necessarily," Dick replies. "I can help with this. Deflection and all that"

"I have to go talk to her, I have to show her this, or something," Wally says, and he walks out of the room before Dick can stop him.

He knocks on Artemis's door and when she lets him in he asks, "Can I use your laptop?"

"Right here, I was working on some school stuff. Why?"

Wally just shakes his head and types in their names together and clicks on the TMZ article. Wordlessly he turns the screen towards Artemis and lets her read it.

"Do you know why Megan and Conner _really_ broke up?" he says once he knows that Artemis is done reading. "He broke up with her because of stupid stuff like this. Because she wasn't handling the pressure of being tied to someone famous, and the shit that comes with it. I asked you out today because I honestly didn't think that anything like this would happen. But people are already saying horrible things, and I'm sure your twitter mentions are exploding. I understand if you don't want anything to do with me if this stuff is already happening now, but I want you to know that I _really_ like you. I like you enough to stop this now if you can't handle it."

Artemis just looks at him before starting with punching his arm in response. "Don't you think I didn't know that this was going to happen? Of course I knew it was going to happen, I'm not an idiot. I know how the world works, and I knew that eventually everyone would find out. I didn't think it would happen so soon...but I did. And Wally? I'm not Megan. I'm willing to do this with you, because you mean a lot to me."

She pauses, before continuing. "And it's sort of early to be talking like this, but I want it, okay? I want us, even with all of the bullshit in the way. Okay?"

Wally just looks at her and knows that he lucked out. The sick feeling in his gut lessens some.

"Okay," he answers, before wrapping her up in a hug.

.

When he goes back to the room he finds Dick sitting on the armchair in the corner of the room, phone in his hand.

"Hey, are you alright? You look sort of sick."

"I'm fine," Dick answers, looking up. "You're going to have to buy tomorrow's People, though. They're having to re-do the issue, and I'm going to be front page. Headline: _Young Justice, Not As Straight As They Seem_. I sold Zee my story."


End file.
